No way to run a country

Churchville, VA. — We can’t predict how the government shutdown will be resolved in the short term, let alone the more permanent long run effect. Things are so bad that The Economist magazine has a sketch of George Washington’s Mt. Rushmore head, scowling at the brawling political parties. The Economist claims to offer “Global intelligence for excellent thinkers.” It says the Republicans should retreat so the liberals can deal with the unfortunate “polarization” of American politics.

Has The Economist’s advice worked in the past? It ardently recommended exactly the “soft socialism” that piled up the current huge debt burdens in the EU, the national health care the EU cannot support without “death panels,” and an unsupportable population of EU non-taxpayers. Think Greece, Italy, Spain, etc.

Worse, The Economist has also led the decades-long “global” campaign for the Kyoto treaty. They claim the planet needs the “insurance policy.” Never mind that the premiums on the “insurance” would beggar society without making a significant difference in the atmospheric CO2.

The Economist helped push Britain into the “greenest” carbon policies in the known world. Now, even though the global temperatures haven’t risen for more than 15 years they have created their very own energy crisis. Their North Sea gas is running out. Britain has plenty of coal, but the EU is shuttering the UK’s big coal-fired plants for emitting too much CO2. Its nuclear plants are due for decommissioning. Blackouts loom.

There is only one “acceptable” new energy source. Three thousand wind turbines scarring its finest landscapes. Britain promises to build thousands of still-more-expensive turbine barges offshore. However, no fossil power plant has been decommissioned because the renewables are so erratic. They must be 90% backed by fossil plants running in “spinning reserve” or the lights go out.

Many Britons must choose now between heating and eating. Electric bills have doubled in a decade, with another doubling guaranteed by the wind subsidies. This winter, the British Red Cross is planning to hand out food to the poor—for the first time since the end of World War II.

Germany’s industries are paying three times as much for their electricity as U.S. companies—mainly because of the natural gas fracked on private land that Obama had no power to stop. German and British companies are already earmarking billions for U. S expansion.

The head of Britain’s Labour Party helped inflict the “Green”policies,” and now says he’d “freeze” British electric bills. Price controls have failed for 4,000 years, but he is leading in the polls. Investors have lost billions because the renewables cost more than the subsidies, and they are unilling to finance additional power.

The Economist says it is sorry about the lost energy, the lost jobs, and the about-to-be lost British industries. However, it is still as worried as Barack Obama and his deluded Environment Protection agency about energy being “too cheap.”

In the U.S. struggle, urgently concerned conservatives are trying to try to rein in the debt binge before it takes us back to wheelbarrows full of 1930s German marks needed to buy a loaf of bread. The Economist does not deserve what little reputation it still has.

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6 Comments

Teresa Maria
October 18, 2013 at 4:03 AM

I live in Scotland, we are being besieged by wind farm developers. The turbines are springing up everywhere with thousands more in the pipeline. They are ruining our land, displacing our wild-life, killing thousands of birds, devaluing our properties, and having negative impacts on our health.

Many of us are now living in fuel poverty, only managing to heat our homes for a limited period each day, keeping in mind we are often experiencing -minus temperatures during what is a long winter period in Scotland. It is reported that UK wide we lose approx. 29,000 people to cold-related deaths each year.

So far, the majority of our politicians and newspapers are turning a blind eye to the destruction they are causing, and indeed, the propaganda for so called ‘green-energy’ is still thrown at us, despite more and more evidence that the whole thing is mostly a subsidy-scam.

There is yet another protest march this weekend to try to get our politicians to at least have a moratorium and try to sort out this mess. In the meantime we continue to see more and more of our landscapes being trashed by the wind farms. It is a crying shame and an assault against the people of Scotland.

Before David Cameron was elected Prime Minister of GB, I wrote him and explained how wrong he was with respect to his “green” thinking.
Obviously he is as dumb as Barry Hussein Obama, who says that CO2 is a dangerous gas, causing Global warming and Global climate change, which we have to stop by putting up thousands of windmills (efficiency only 2 – 4 %) and millions of solar panels (of even lower efficiency!), shutting down coal fired, oil and gas burning elecrticity generating plants to deminish the CO2 content in the atmosphere!
While exactly CO2 is indispensable for life on earth; so the more manmade CO2 is brought into the atmosphere, the better it is.
But get that in the stupid´s head!

Simon Bolivar
October 21, 2013 at 7:35 AM

Whilst I disagree with about Climate Change, I’m no alarmist, however and industry is required if we’re to have a civilisation to live in, even more so, ironically in the it is happening scenario, which is why green types annoy me, they want to effectively ban or shutdown the use of any technology that would assist in C02 reduction, such as say re-invigorating nuclear power, as France has.

The ITER project in Europe is worth a look, as are similar ones in the US.

Anyone with a smattering of knowledge about either Nuclear Energy, Carbon Offsetting, and the main scientific and economic issues we’re currently facing (Austerity is well dismantled by Martin Wolf of the FT, for example).

Whilst I don’t hold with ideas like “death panels” they’re a very US Right Wing thing, and not at all present in the NHS (what’s left it since it has been sold off), there is a cost-benefit quantity vs quality assessment of patients in which their included, but that’s all medicine is anyway, forestalling the inevitable and improving early survival.

Specifically on the Scotland side of things, I heard that many Windfarms (again even if like me you’re for greener energy they are not enough, It’s apparent in the calculations of generation and efficiency and output etc, also the market is structured in a way that means most Fossil Fuels are backed by Taxpayers anyway, so the change to make the underpinnings different wouldn’t be to complex, seeing as they’re in place).
They’re being put on Carbon Sink Peat Bogs for one, people aren’t being consulted, and they’re like a plaster on a bigger issue anyhow, I hope the Scots can deal with this one, voting Yes perhaps.

Couldn’t agree more with you on ‘The Economist’ even from my clearly more left perspective, they’ve had articles proposing the shutting down of major UK cities like Hull, as they’re not making enough money, because stupid economic policies, like the one you mention and others (many, many more, as I’m sure you’re aware) have basically crippled the UK, since the early 70’s by my reckoning, what I note as ‘Friedman/Thatcher/Pinochet/Wars at home and abroad (against the kids and the Falklands debacle).

I’m glad as well that people from across the falsely divisive ‘political spectrum’ are at least united in things not being run properly or well, as generally it takes a lot for us to agree on even basics.

Scottar
April 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM

I think Economist should rename itself to E-Con-O-Flip.

J.P. Katigbak
November 7, 2014 at 6:51 PM

Yes, I agree with that: The Economist magazine should have called “E-Con-O-Flip” or stuff like that. – J.P.K.